I like to use some mild casing. I also like to toast. What I generally do is take whole leaf Flue Cured, Turkish, Burley, Dark Air, Dark Fire Cured, and a little of whatever else I have around, remove the mid ribs, spray the leaves with a casing mix of about a cup water, a tablespoon of honey (warm it up to dissolve the honey) a teaspoon or so of vanilla extract, some licorice extract. To get the leaves pretty wet, then leave them overnight in a ziploc.
Then I put the leaves, except the Fire Cured and Turkish, in an oven heated to 250 degrees, turning and checking the leaves frequently until they are dry (don't over toast). Take it out of the oven, spray again (not too much spray his time) with some of the solution that has a shot of scotch whiskey added to rehydrate the dry leaves, this is called topping,seal in a bag or jar to rehydrate to medium case or high case, and then I lay the leaf strips on too of each other, sprinkling a good amount of Latakia and Cavendish between the leaf strips, press it flat, put it in a freezer bag ziploc that's not zipped up, and press between two boards with a C-Clamp. In an hour I tighten the press some more and again the next morning. After 12 hours of pressing I take out the nice hard block of tobacco. I usually do about 6-8 oz at a time. Dry it a bit to avoid mold and slice off some flakes to rub out for a smoke.
If you don't have a press you can also roll the moist leaves as tight as you can with maybe extra casing solution into a big cigar. Let the cigar sit overnight to marry the flavored then slice into thin medallions.
The reason I go through all the trouble of blending, casing, pressing, topping, toasting and all that is because I inhale pipe tobacco. Burley untoasted can be harsh and Virginia can have what's called tongue bite in a pipe. My mixtures are very smooth when inhaled. If they're not, I just blend in some Cavendish.
the toasting makes the Burley milder and the Virginia have no tongue bite. You could achieve that by putting the mixture in sealed jars and aging for a year, but who wants to do that? But if you don't inhale you may not need to go through all that trouble.
The pressing achieves two things: it helps blend the flavores of the different varieties and the casing together, and it also creates the right density for the shred when sliced. I've tried smoking cigarette shed in a pipe and it's not good at all.